Ch.2: My Dear Friend
Leena's voice came over the revolving comm. links, "We've got a Type-D and possibly
an F a little ways from colony H. You should make yourselves comfortable since they won't
be in range for a little while; be on the alert though. We can't spot out the little
tweezer spy guys they're starting to send."
I flinched. Last time, the Victims had sent a few of a not-quite-Victim type
creature in front to scout out the lay of the land. It was not a happy fight, since
apparently the arrow-shaped creature could dive into any substance and eat it away like
acid - Rio tried to catch it with Tellia Kallisto's fingers and it ate it away like it was
nothing. It was not a pretty sight: Rio was screaming and I could literally feel every head
(including Victim heads) turn at my nice, long, verbal substitute for the term "shut up".
And of course, there was Erts, who jumped at every other squeak a Victim made at him
and flinched every time a voice came over the comm. I had pretty much tried to look the
other way when he made a mistake in battle, and even when he narrowly managed to save me by
plucking another tweezer-creature from my hands before it started at my arms, I gave him a
'look' when I came out that clearly told I wasn't pleased he tried to save my life. He
wasn't Ernest, and I didn't expect him to be.
If I had looked a little closer, I might have realized I wasn't getting along with
Erts at all. I was acting like other people did to him. I was acting the way I had first
acted around Ernest: scared of him touching me, but fascinated about his inborn ability. I
was treating him...different. The way I knew Ernest hated to be treated.
It was the kind of feeling, if I had known, that makes you feel outside, even though
people are trying to get you inside, where it's warm and happy. It's an uncomfortable
feeling, because you know everyone's looking at you and asking you to come in, but you know
you can't step past the threshold because someone else is there. Ernest is still there,
just the memory, but that memory's enough to stop Erts from entering any door.
I never truly asked just what the brothers' relationship was. I knew it was deep, I
knew Ernest took a shuttle back to G.O.A. every other second of the day not devoted to
lessons and skirmishes and Goddesses to see his brother. I knew they were close, by the way
Ernest talked with such definite LOVE about his brother. It was sweet. It was touching.
It made me sick, but made me feel a little happy inside knowing that Ernest had such a
person to talk to when I couldn't understand. From what I heard, Erts had more potential
than his brother; his EX rates went off the charts; he could "study", or what the Old Planet
called "fencing", better than anyone in the academy (believe me, I know, because I tried to
fence with him and lost miserably); he learned his studies quicker and was the youngest Top
Candidate in the history of G.O.A. Ernest helped, from what I heard. When Ernest couldn't
be there in person, I knew Erts was listening to his brother mentally.
I also knew where they went when they wanted to be alone - it was the circular room
with some fake trees and some nice breeze blowing the leaves into vents to be stuck back on
later on the same trees (the gardeners cheated - no tree could grow that many leaves
overnight). They had a little grove on the side where the designated "couples" of G.O.A.
liked to kiss and make out, but apparently Ernest and Erts didn't care if their aura was
still hanging around. When they entered that grove, they didn't like to come out. They
didn't talk; they thought back and forth. Nobody entered the grove while they were there;
it was sacred while they were there, a holy haven that they could only enter. You could
almost say I envied Erts, just a teeny weeny bit, because he could talk to his brother so...
fluidly. Like music. Ernest's music.
Ernest didn't settle for the plain violins and pianos. He went wildly through
ocarinas and piccolos, through the deep cellos and the mysterious oboes, then trilled with
the old, very ancient harpsicords and clavicords and celestes. Even before we became the
friends we later were, I could pick up shreds of those songs without words but deserved to
have a vocalist to them. It was as if they had a soul, like Ernest, only very carefully
hidden. Guarded, almost, like a covetous jewel.
Four people shared a room back then (it's been cut down to three because G.O.A.
built an East hospital wing two years ago and the North wing was now open to settlement;
entrance exams are harder to pass, so there are less Candidates): Yu, Rioroute, Ernest and
me. Two beds to each wall; Rioroute and I hit it off from the first as two really
boisterous boys who wrestled and chatted while we fought. Yu had his sister, who he spent
most of his time working with, and Ernest was very, very quiet. Too quiet.
Do you know that feeling when you see a quiet person and you just know there's a
loud person inside who's ready to talk to you? Ernest wasn't that way. You couldn't tell
whether he was shy or he was angry or when he was smiling. He just was silent. You just
couldn't read any emotion off of him; it was like he was deaf and blind and senseless to the
world. It didn't need him, and he didn't need it. Erts was not quite the same; he
practically grew up in G.O.A., so he knew all the staff, all the workers, and they all knew
him. He wasn't open, but he wasn't closed either.
And then there was the day we truly met, Ernest and I. Before that Ernest was even
quieter than Yu, if at all possible. Yu came with us, even though I knew he didn't like us
talking and laughing down the hall every time we stepped out the door. Ernest...he was
always gone. The only time he was ever in the room was when he was sleeping - later I
wondered why I never heard the shower go off in the morning, and found he showered in the
hospital wing instead. That was when I started to follow Ernest.
Ernest didn't eat with us - he ate with another, smaller, not-yet-Candidate material
boy who looked, talked, acted like Ernest. He was Erts.
Ernest didn't use pencil to take notes - he pressed his palm to the computer screen
and the computer conferred the thoughts he was sending into clips. He could replay any
teacher's lecture at any given time. He was practically part of the security, just inside
the classrooms.
And most of all, Ernest didn't hang out with us. Why? I didn't know. I had to
ask. I was no curious cat, but he was no willing mouse, either.
So I took him by force. "Why should I go to class? There's still three minutes
left?", he said softly. I almost didn't hear him, but instead I grabbed his wrist and
skidded down the hall. When we arrived at the classroom, we were both panting, but when I
asked him why, he answered, "Because your thoughts are so vivid."
I didn't take my hand away. Instead, I led him into class, and his hand held mine
back as if I were the last golden thread of light or something. Needless to say, he became
the closest friend anyone could want. I was his friend, and he was happy about it. Ernest
wasn't the kind of person to show happiness in leaps and bounds; he showed it through his
eyes, soft, hesitant, but so accepting. He was the most open person I knew.
"Target in range", came Tune's soft voice over the comm. I could see Ernest/Erts in
the cockpit of Reneighd Klein, getting ready to battle, and their faces seemed to match up
in my memory, determined in their own ways to come out alive. If I concentrated enough, I
could almost feel Ernest's mind there in Reneighd Klein, soft, pulsing, but very alive. If
I closed my eyes I could see him, his face in a softened look of trust.
A bad idea. Never close your eyes during a battle. Why? Because you might get
knocked out.
And that was precisely what happened.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's note:
Yes, of course. This is the fic "Dissonance" rewritten. I hated that fic (yeah, I
know, it's my own work, but I still hate it), so I somewhat rewrote it. It doesn't
center around music like "Dissonance" did. Ah, that's all. Next chapter will be nice and
Ertsy. And I do hope that you realized this is Gareas talking.
Andrea Weiling
Leena's voice came over the revolving comm. links, "We've got a Type-D and possibly
an F a little ways from colony H. You should make yourselves comfortable since they won't
be in range for a little while; be on the alert though. We can't spot out the little
tweezer spy guys they're starting to send."
I flinched. Last time, the Victims had sent a few of a not-quite-Victim type
creature in front to scout out the lay of the land. It was not a happy fight, since
apparently the arrow-shaped creature could dive into any substance and eat it away like
acid - Rio tried to catch it with Tellia Kallisto's fingers and it ate it away like it was
nothing. It was not a pretty sight: Rio was screaming and I could literally feel every head
(including Victim heads) turn at my nice, long, verbal substitute for the term "shut up".
And of course, there was Erts, who jumped at every other squeak a Victim made at him
and flinched every time a voice came over the comm. I had pretty much tried to look the
other way when he made a mistake in battle, and even when he narrowly managed to save me by
plucking another tweezer-creature from my hands before it started at my arms, I gave him a
'look' when I came out that clearly told I wasn't pleased he tried to save my life. He
wasn't Ernest, and I didn't expect him to be.
If I had looked a little closer, I might have realized I wasn't getting along with
Erts at all. I was acting like other people did to him. I was acting the way I had first
acted around Ernest: scared of him touching me, but fascinated about his inborn ability. I
was treating him...different. The way I knew Ernest hated to be treated.
It was the kind of feeling, if I had known, that makes you feel outside, even though
people are trying to get you inside, where it's warm and happy. It's an uncomfortable
feeling, because you know everyone's looking at you and asking you to come in, but you know
you can't step past the threshold because someone else is there. Ernest is still there,
just the memory, but that memory's enough to stop Erts from entering any door.
I never truly asked just what the brothers' relationship was. I knew it was deep, I
knew Ernest took a shuttle back to G.O.A. every other second of the day not devoted to
lessons and skirmishes and Goddesses to see his brother. I knew they were close, by the way
Ernest talked with such definite LOVE about his brother. It was sweet. It was touching.
It made me sick, but made me feel a little happy inside knowing that Ernest had such a
person to talk to when I couldn't understand. From what I heard, Erts had more potential
than his brother; his EX rates went off the charts; he could "study", or what the Old Planet
called "fencing", better than anyone in the academy (believe me, I know, because I tried to
fence with him and lost miserably); he learned his studies quicker and was the youngest Top
Candidate in the history of G.O.A. Ernest helped, from what I heard. When Ernest couldn't
be there in person, I knew Erts was listening to his brother mentally.
I also knew where they went when they wanted to be alone - it was the circular room
with some fake trees and some nice breeze blowing the leaves into vents to be stuck back on
later on the same trees (the gardeners cheated - no tree could grow that many leaves
overnight). They had a little grove on the side where the designated "couples" of G.O.A.
liked to kiss and make out, but apparently Ernest and Erts didn't care if their aura was
still hanging around. When they entered that grove, they didn't like to come out. They
didn't talk; they thought back and forth. Nobody entered the grove while they were there;
it was sacred while they were there, a holy haven that they could only enter. You could
almost say I envied Erts, just a teeny weeny bit, because he could talk to his brother so...
fluidly. Like music. Ernest's music.
Ernest didn't settle for the plain violins and pianos. He went wildly through
ocarinas and piccolos, through the deep cellos and the mysterious oboes, then trilled with
the old, very ancient harpsicords and clavicords and celestes. Even before we became the
friends we later were, I could pick up shreds of those songs without words but deserved to
have a vocalist to them. It was as if they had a soul, like Ernest, only very carefully
hidden. Guarded, almost, like a covetous jewel.
Four people shared a room back then (it's been cut down to three because G.O.A.
built an East hospital wing two years ago and the North wing was now open to settlement;
entrance exams are harder to pass, so there are less Candidates): Yu, Rioroute, Ernest and
me. Two beds to each wall; Rioroute and I hit it off from the first as two really
boisterous boys who wrestled and chatted while we fought. Yu had his sister, who he spent
most of his time working with, and Ernest was very, very quiet. Too quiet.
Do you know that feeling when you see a quiet person and you just know there's a
loud person inside who's ready to talk to you? Ernest wasn't that way. You couldn't tell
whether he was shy or he was angry or when he was smiling. He just was silent. You just
couldn't read any emotion off of him; it was like he was deaf and blind and senseless to the
world. It didn't need him, and he didn't need it. Erts was not quite the same; he
practically grew up in G.O.A., so he knew all the staff, all the workers, and they all knew
him. He wasn't open, but he wasn't closed either.
And then there was the day we truly met, Ernest and I. Before that Ernest was even
quieter than Yu, if at all possible. Yu came with us, even though I knew he didn't like us
talking and laughing down the hall every time we stepped out the door. Ernest...he was
always gone. The only time he was ever in the room was when he was sleeping - later I
wondered why I never heard the shower go off in the morning, and found he showered in the
hospital wing instead. That was when I started to follow Ernest.
Ernest didn't eat with us - he ate with another, smaller, not-yet-Candidate material
boy who looked, talked, acted like Ernest. He was Erts.
Ernest didn't use pencil to take notes - he pressed his palm to the computer screen
and the computer conferred the thoughts he was sending into clips. He could replay any
teacher's lecture at any given time. He was practically part of the security, just inside
the classrooms.
And most of all, Ernest didn't hang out with us. Why? I didn't know. I had to
ask. I was no curious cat, but he was no willing mouse, either.
So I took him by force. "Why should I go to class? There's still three minutes
left?", he said softly. I almost didn't hear him, but instead I grabbed his wrist and
skidded down the hall. When we arrived at the classroom, we were both panting, but when I
asked him why, he answered, "Because your thoughts are so vivid."
I didn't take my hand away. Instead, I led him into class, and his hand held mine
back as if I were the last golden thread of light or something. Needless to say, he became
the closest friend anyone could want. I was his friend, and he was happy about it. Ernest
wasn't the kind of person to show happiness in leaps and bounds; he showed it through his
eyes, soft, hesitant, but so accepting. He was the most open person I knew.
"Target in range", came Tune's soft voice over the comm. I could see Ernest/Erts in
the cockpit of Reneighd Klein, getting ready to battle, and their faces seemed to match up
in my memory, determined in their own ways to come out alive. If I concentrated enough, I
could almost feel Ernest's mind there in Reneighd Klein, soft, pulsing, but very alive. If
I closed my eyes I could see him, his face in a softened look of trust.
A bad idea. Never close your eyes during a battle. Why? Because you might get
knocked out.
And that was precisely what happened.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
Author's note:
Yes, of course. This is the fic "Dissonance" rewritten. I hated that fic (yeah, I
know, it's my own work, but I still hate it), so I somewhat rewrote it. It doesn't
center around music like "Dissonance" did. Ah, that's all. Next chapter will be nice and
Ertsy. And I do hope that you realized this is Gareas talking.
Andrea Weiling